


Once More With Feeling

by Redrikki



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, It's gonna get messy, Or At Least Attempt To, Or Is he?, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-05-19 17:49:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14878458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/pseuds/Redrikki
Summary: Anakin dies in his son's arms at the end of Return of the Jedi and wakes up in Obi-Wan's towards the end of the Clone Wars. The Force has given him an opportunity and he plans to make the most of it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [duc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/duc/gifts).



> Began as a three sentence AU prompt on tumblr. My, how it has grown.

He claws his way back to consciousness to find it is not Luke, but the Obi-Wan of his memories frantically shaking the life back into him.

“Honestly, Anakin, you’ll be the death of me,” Obi-Wan says sternly in a vain attempt to hide his relief.

“Yes, I was,” Anakin says, dazed and shaky, and bursts into tears. 

It takes him an embarrassingly long time to stop crying. Anakin has lost so much in his life. His wife. His name. The chance to raise their children. His mother. His childhood friends. His childhood. The freedom which should have been his, but never was. Over the years, he has railed against their loss, but has never truly taken the time to mourn them. A lifetime’s worth of grief comes pouring out in a torrent of tears and snot.

Obi-Wan recoils instinctively from the messy emotional outpouring. After a moment’s hesitation, he reaches out. “There there.” Pat pat. “There there.”

Anakin laughs wetly through his tears. The man is just so terrible at comfort. This is the perfect time for a hug, but Obi-Wan holds himself back like he’s afraid emotions are catching. Or maybe he just wants to avoid getting snot on his clothes. He’s wearing the thick, blaster-resistant tunics he’d sported towards the end of the war, but he looks more tired than Anakin remembers. He’s not even 40, yet there are worry lines etched across his forehead and gray hairs peaking out from behind ginger at his temples.

Obi-Wan claimed once to have loved him. He’d yelled it, in fact, as Anakin laid maimed and burning at his feet. This Obi-Wan probably loves Anakin now, but that hasn’t stopped him from hurting Anakin before. On the Council’s orders, he as lied to him, used him, left him to the tender mercies of a monster. Obi-Wan’s love is worthless. He has hurt him before and will do it again, but Anakin can stop it. He struck Obi-Wan down before. It would be easy to do it now.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says warily, pulling back even further. He must sense the danger he is in, but he doesn’t reach for his saber. “Are you all right?”

All right? _All right?!_ Anakin’s laughter takes on a slightly crazed note. How could he possibly be all right? He loves this man, always has, even as he hated him, even as he killed him. They have loved and hated and destroyed each other. Love without loving action is a worthless. Luke taught him that. If his son could break their cycle of love and destruction, maybe Anakin can too. At least he can try.

It takes a few minutes of deep breathing for his tears to dry. Obi-Wan hovers uselessly, torn between his desire to help and his complete inability to even understand how to do so. Anakin scrubs at his face and smears his snot-covered hand down the front of Obi-Wan’s tunic. His wordless noise of disgusted outrage is deeply satisfying.

Anakin uses Obi-Wan’s shoulder to lever himself to his feet. It’s amazing how easy it is. A great weight has been lifted from him. A hundred pounds of armor and pain are gone and feels like he could float away. Who knew the absence of pain could feel so much like ecstasy? He sways over his old master, standing with his own legs, breathing with his own lungs. The air tastes sweet.

“No. I’m not all right.”

Anakin has died and been restored, gone mad and come back out again. The Force has given him this opportunity and he will make the most of it. He will stop hurting and letting himself be hurt. He will resign from the Order, destroy the would-be emperor, and free all the slaves, starting with himself. No more masters. 

“I’m not all right, but I will be.” 

Anakin takes a moment to look around. The sooner he finds out when and where he is, the faster he can set things to rights. Unfortunately, their surroundings offer few clues. They are in the middle of a seemingly endless field of the sort of leafy green ground cover which can be found on literally hundreds of worlds. A Jedi transport ship sits a little way away and Anakin stalks towards it, leaving Obi-Wan to scramble after him. It feels strange walking in this too light, too small body, but he supposes he will grow used to it in time.

As he steps into the main hold, his gaze snags on his own reflection, dragging him to a halt. It is not his raw and puffy eyes which startle him so much as everything else. Is that what he looks like? Over the years, it seems Anakin has forgotten. He recalled the broad strokes, yes, the sandy hair, blue eyes, and handsomeness, but the details had been burned away. In the last year or so, he had taken to picturing his younger self as a taller Luke, but it appears he was wrong. Anakin and Luke share their chins and their coloring, but Luke’s bone structure is all Padmé. Anakin traces the line of his cheekbone. If anyone, he is a paler, masculine version of his mother.

“Anakin.” Obi-Wan appears behind him and yanks him around. “What is going on?” he demands, gripping his shoulders and giving him a little shake. “What happened to you?”

“I died,” Anakin says simply.

Obi-Wan’s face goes Jedi-blank, but the Force around him screams. “What?” he asks flatly.

“I lived the next twenty years. I died. You died. I came back.” He brushes Obi-Wan’s hands from his shoulders, heads for the cockpit, and fires up the ship’s computer.

According to it, they have just finished the mission to Utapau. They are in the final months of the war and everything is going according to his mast--no, Palpatine’s plan. The Republic’s armies occupy two-thirds of the known galaxy. The Jedi Council knows about both the control chips and the clones’ origins, but is too cowardly to do anything about it. Palpatine already controls the banks and the proposal for a system of military governors is making its way through committee in the Senate. Killing him would be easy, but doing it in a way which allows Anakin to raise his children after will be incredibly difficult.

Anakin wishes Luke were here, or even Artoo. You can always count on droids. As it stands, he will have few allies here. If Obi-Wan and the Council were remotely capable of dealing with the threat Palpatine poses, they would have done so the first time. Ahsoka is who knows where and Padmé, of course, is to be protected. She is too reckless by half and involving her will do nothing but draw Palpatine’s ire. No, once again it is up to Anakin alone to restore peace and balance to the galaxy. He hopes this time he can manage it.

“It’s not possible,” Obi-Wan says, throwing himself into the co-pilot’s seat.

Anakin looks at him sharply. What does he know? Obi-Wan has no idea the power and knowledge at Anakin’s disposal. He will succeed this time. He must.

“You must be mistaken,” Obi-Wan insists. “You must have had a vision, no, a nightmare of some kind. Death, time travel—” he shakes his head “—it’s just not possible.”

Is he still hung up on that? “With the Force, all things are possible,” Anakin reminds him. He initiates the pre-flight sequence. The transport shakes as the engines warm up. “I find your lack of faith disturbing.”

Obi-Wan rubs his forehead as if it pains him. “It’s an expression, Anakin,” he says, exasperated. “The Force doesn’t work this way. If there had ever been a true case of time travel, the Jedi would know about it. No, why don’t you to tell me what’s really going on?”

Anakin grits his teeth and grips the yoke in an effort to restrain himself from Force-chocking the ignorant, arrogant man. _The Force doesn’t work that way. Dreams pass in time._ Wrong and wrong again. And he wonders why Anakin won’t confide in him. Maybe it’s because he is too busy lecturing to actually listen.

Something cracks under his mechanical hand, and Anakin forces himself to let go. It doesn’t matter, he reminds himself, if Obi-Wan believes him or not. The second they return to Coruscant, he will be resigning from the Order anyway. Still, he gives it one last try.

“The Force is so much more than you can possibly imagine,” he says. “Search your feelings. You know what I say is true.”

Obi-Wan stares at him incredulously for a small eternity before grudgingly closing his eyes and reaching out to the Force. A second later, he gasps, his eyes flying open wide, as his shock reverberates all around them. He looks dazed. Understandable, Anakin supposes, considering he has just upended the man’s worldview.

“Do we win?” Obi-Wan asks, breathless.

Anakin thinks of small bodies strewn across the Temple, of clones eating their blasters, of twenty years of endless war and unrest. “No,” he says and takes them up out of the world.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin respectfully submits his resignation.

Obi-Wan drags Anakin before the Council the second they touch down. Of course he does. The man never had a thought the Council didn’t put there first. Not, Anakin must admit, that he is much better. His entire life has been spent chasing after the approval of one master or another. The only real difference between them is that, while Anakin has always feared and resented them, Obi-Wan loves and trusts his. Anakin has longed for one kind and wise enough to be worthy of such devotion, but his two best candidates turned down the position. A sign, perhaps, of their wisdom.

His would-be masters sit arrayed before him now, lit by the sun’s fading light in an odd reflection of the night they first rejected him. Yoda leans forward attentively, hands resting on his glimmer stick. Mace reclines, taking in Obi-Wan’s report from behind his tented fingers. The holos of distant councilors flicker like ghosts. They are all dead, Anakin realizes. Some had fallen by his hand, others by the clones or Palpatine, but all had died before him. Even the seemingly-immortal Yoda. Anakin has no idea what happened to him, but he had certainly felt it when the ancient master passed into the Force. Yoda looks sharply at him now, sensing the direction of his thoughts, but Anakin ignores the silent question in his eyes.

Instead, he lets his mind wander as Obi-Wan recounts their adventures on Utapau. They had destroyed a giant kyber crystal destined for the Death Star. Pieces of Palpatine’s grand design had been in plain view all along, but these so-called wise masters had refused to even look at them. Pathetic. 

A ripple of unease sweeps through the Council and it occurs to Anakin that they can see his sneer. His mask has spoiled him. He has grown unused to schooling his features in the face of fools. Drawing upon the Temple’s wellspring of calm, he makes an effort to do so now.

The Force feels strange here. The Darkness Anakin’s slaughter had wrought is gone, and yet all is not light. Like a jogan fruit which has rotten from the inside out, everything seems fine on the surface, but at the core is a nightmare waiting to explode. Can none of them feel it? Has his own Dark past made him more attuned or are they hoping it will go away if they ignore it?

“Skywalker, do you have anything to add?” Mace asks once Obi-Wan has wound down.

“I—”

“Anakin had a vision of some sort on the way home,” Obi-Wan jumps in as though Anakin is not perfectly capable of speaking for himself. “He claims to have seen the end of the war.”

Anakin shoots him a dark look. He had thought that Obi-Wan had accepted the truth. Now it seemed the man would rather hedge than support him before the masters. Typical. 

“A vision, you say?” Yoda eyes him skeptically and he is not the only one. 

For all their efforts, none on the Council has seen so far. How can a mere knight see more than they do, even if he does have more midichlorians than all of them combined? It is an affront to their dignity and all-powerful reputation. So, like everything they do no like, Anakin’s ‘vision’ must be ignored. This time Anakin does not bother to hide his sneer of disdain. 

“It was not—” he glares at Obi-Wan “—a vision.” Anakin lifts his chin and meets the gaze of each councilor in turn. “I lived my life. I died. I was restored.”

Obi-Wan groans and covers his face in his hand as though Anakin has done something horribly embarrassing but his thoughts are tinged with fear. They will think Anakin is crazy. Obi-Wan can protect him no longer. Even now, Shaak Ti and Stass Allie exchange an alarmed look. Another Jedi the war has pushed past the edge. They worry for the future of the Order. Plo Koon is saddened to see another promising young knight brought so low. Only Ki-Adi-Mundi seems inclined to listen. 

“How did you die?” he asks, leaning intently forward. “How does the war end?” 

“I died destroying the Sith.” 

Everyone but Obi-Wan seems pleased to hear it. They will be less pleased in a moment.

“The Republic falls,” Anakin continues. “The Order fails. Your children die terrified and betrayed.” 

His gaze falls on the spot where a body laid. After making the Temple into his palace, Palpatine used to bring him here and call attention to the stains. His master always did enjoy twisting the knife.

The Force explodes. Anakin is blasted on all sides by the maelstrom of their emotions. Shock. Horror. Grief. Anger. Denial. They can all feel the truth of his words, but that last one gathers strength until it dominates the room. Anakin knows what is coming before Yoda even opens his mouth. 

“Preposterous.” Yoda bangs his staff on the floor for emphasis. “Impossible, time travel is.” Apparently, he knows nothing of the Temple on Lothal. 

Shoulders slump with relief all around the room. After all, if Yoda says it, it must be true. They are so sure now that Anakin is lying, not one of them asks for the identity of the Sith.

“Clearly, Skywalker is suffering from some kind of breakdown,” Mace says. “Obi-Wan, take him to the Halls of Healing.”

“No.” Anakin draws his lightsaber and half the Council reaches for theirs. The world balances on a knife’s edge. He could destroy them all and they know it. Anakin is half tempted to do it, but no. He is a Jedi, like his son before him. He casts his saber aside. It rolls across the floor to land at Plo Koon’s fee. 

“Your arrogant incompetence will doom the galaxy,” Anakin says into the stunned silence. They stare at his lightsaber like they are waiting for it to explode. The weapon is a Jedi’s life. One doesn’t simply toss it away. 

“Barriss Offee was right,” he declares and wins back their undivided attention. “You have committed evil and allowed others to commit evil in the service of a Greater Good which is neither.”

Anakin could be talking to himself. He is talking to himself. After all, he learned from the best. Would he have been able to rationalize the Empire’s atrocities if the Jedi had not taught him how? No more masters and no more slaves. 

“I am done,” Anakin says and sweeps out of the room.

At least, he tries to. “Anakin, please.” Obi-Wan’s agonized voice catches him at the door.

Obi-Wan looks like his heart is breaking, like he is standing on the bank and watching Anakin burn. _I loved you,_ he had shouted then, as though Anakin had slain that love along with the younglings back at the Temple. The air is filled with the stench of burning. Is Anakin hallucinating, or is this simply what love smells like when it dies?  
“I’m sorry,” Anakin says and means it. He knows all too well the pain of a student’s rejection. In the end though, both Luke and Ahsoka were better for having found their own path. He hopes someday Obi-Wan will realize the same is true of him, but he doubts it.

“I can never be the Jedi you want,” Anakin tells him as gently as possible, like he hadn’t spent years cutting off little bits of himself in a fruitless attempt to be. “I have to start being myself.”

This time when he leaves, no one stops him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reunion with Padmé does't go quite as planned.

Leaving the council chamber, Anakin can’t get to Padmé fast enough. Every second trapped in the slow-moving turbo-lift is agony. Her signature in the Force shines like a beacon calling him across the twilight city, made even brighter with the lights of their unborn children. For the first time in their lives, nothing stands between them save for a few miles distance. Anakin rendezvous with Artoo in the Temple hanger bay and takes the nearest speeder before anyone can think to stop him. Weaving recklessly in and out of the evening rush hour traffic, he arrives at the apartment in record time. He parks the speeder haphazardly on the balcony and bursts into the sitting room.

The startled faces of Senators Organa, Mothma, and Chuchi bring Anakin to a stumbling halt. Rebels and traitors all of them. How dare they interfere with this reunion. Anakin is tempted to hurl them all from the balcony, but no. They were rebelling against his master, just as he is now. As little as he likes it, they are allies, and besides, Padmé would be upset if he disposed of her friends.

“Anakin!” Padmé springs to her feet, a vision in a green velvet gown. She is half-way into his arms before she remembers their audience. “Master Jedi,” she says, pulling on her dignity like an ill-fitting cloak which can not fully hide the joy in her eyes or the quaver of excitement in her voice. “What are you doing here?”

“I have left the Order,” Anakin says, reaching for her.

“What?!” Padmé rears back like a startled epoie. “But…the war.” She glances nervously at her guests. “Ani,” she whispers so only he can hear, “we talked about this.”

They had, and Anakin had agreed, but that was before he had learned the truth. “The war is a sham,” he says, taking her hand and leading her back to the couch. “It is a shell game intended to bring the Sith to power, nothing more.” He sits down beside Padmé, close enough to practically be in her lap.

Padmé’s hand still lies sheltered in Anakin’s own. Had he truly thought that the lack of pain was ecstasy? How foolish he had been. He lifts their joined hands and nuzzles the back of her knuckles. _This_ is ecstasy. The senators stare in opened mouth shock. Let them. His wife’s hand is the softest thing he has touched in decades and he will not be letting go.

Still, he will not let it distract him from his larger mission. “Senator Chuchi.”

The little senator squeaks, wrenching her gaze from Anakin and Padmé’s joined hands to his face with great effort. “Yes?”

“Are you still in contact with Ahsoka Tano?”

“What? I—” Chuchi shakes her head like a slowly-waking woman trying to dispel the last vestiges of a dream. “No. Not since she…left.”

Pity. Anakin will need competent allies in his quest to destroy Palpatine and Ahsoka has never let him down, not even when they were enemies. He would have seen her again during the liberation of Mandalore, but who knows if that will happen now. He will meditate on her later. 

“Anakin?” Padmé calls him back to the present with a touch to his arm. “What are you saying? Has something happened? Are you alright?” she asks, her grip growing tighter and her voice more frantic with each question.

He will have to tell her something, Anakin realizes with a sinking feeling. Padmé is a woman who loves her investigations. If he does not give her answers, she will go digging for her own until she finds one that gets her killed. He rifles through possible explanations to find the least dangerous one.

“The clones all have control chips in their heads.”

“We know,” Organa says gently. He exchanges a look with Padmé. Organa is worried, not about the clones as he should be, but about Anakin. “The senate was informed when the Jedi issues the vaccine to prevent Separatist tampering.”

Were they? Interesting how not one of these high-minded rebels had suggested simply removing the chips as a more effective, not to mention ethical, counter measure. It is almost as though all their talk of sentient rights only applies to some.

“I see,” he says, his lips twisting in a cynical line. “An army of mind-controlled slaves is acceptable so long as they are under the control of the Senate.”

Shocked gasps all around. Organa recoils as if struck. The truth is a palpable blow. Chuchi opens her mouth as if to speak, but no sound emerges. Her missing words are hiding in Padmé’s pleading eyes. She’s so sorry. She hadn’t thought. She hadn’t realized. None of them had. Mothma is as pale as her dress and Organa looks like he might be sick, but none of them deny the truth of what Anakin said.

Good. As a Jedi, Anakin had often lied to himself about the nature of his actions. As Vader, he tried to convince himself they were necessary, but he had lost the luxury of pretending that they were not monstrous. They have all been slavers for years. They can not change that until they acknowledge it. 

“What if I told you the clones are not under the Senate’s control?” Anakin says in a conspirator’s whisper. He leans forward, drawing them in.

“What do you mean?” Padmé asks breathlessly.

“Master Sifo-Dyas contacted the Kaminoans about creating a clone army, but the Jedi recently discovered that he was killed before they were commissioned,” Anakin says, warming to the subject. 

The mystery of the clone army’s origins is the perfect distraction to keep Padmé out of trouble. It all leads back to Palpatine, but, in the meantime, it will cause the Jedi so much trouble that he will be too busy cackling to make her stop. Who knows, maybe Padmé will even uncover something Anakin can use. Maybe there is a secret command he can whisper in some poor clone’s ear to make him kill the chancellor. Maybe after, he can even convince himself it was the right thing to do. 

“It turns out he was murdered while on a secret mission for Chancellor Valorum,” Anakin continues. “The official traveling with him was murdered also.” He is fudging some of the details, but it hardly matters. He has their undivided attention now. “Someone also deleted any mention of Kamino from the Temple Archives.”

Anakin leans back and lets the implication of that sink in. Only a Jedi could have access to the archives and only a master could modify them. There is only one Jedi master, or rather, ex-Jedi master who would have a reason to do so. The senators exchange justifiably alarmed looks. 

“Do you have any proof of this?” Mothma asks.

Anakin shakes his head. “It should be easy to obtain a control chip and see what is on it,” he says. He may not be a general any more, but all he has to do is put the word out that he is investigating what really happened to Tup and Fives, and he will be swimming in chips. “The rest of the evidence is with the Jedi.”

“Why haven’t they come to the Senate with this?” Organa asks.

“Maybe they’re still investing,” Chuchi suggests hopefully. “They’ll come to us when they know more.”

Mothma scoffs. Apparently, she is one of the growing number of people who have lost their faith in the Jedi Order. The discontent is not just the product of the subtle poison Palpatine has been pouring in everyone’s ears. The Jedi have alienated many on their own with their high-handed ways and failures.

“They are afraid,” Anakin says, “of what could happen to the clones and their own reputation. The Council has not even told their own people. I only know because I was involved in the investigation.” 

The cover up is a massive breach of trust and a perfectly good reason for a knight of conscious to resign in protest. The others are still undecided, but Padmé has that stubborn look on her face which says she will not rest until she has gotten to the bottom of it. Her insistence on personally solving all the galaxy’s problems is just one of the many things Anakin loves about her. 

Organa has caught Padmé’s expression as well, but is considerably less pleased about it. He and Mothma exchange worried look. Their friend is too reckless, sometimes, for her own good and this is not going to end well. 

“I agree this is a serious matter,” he says, “but why come to us? Why not take this directly to the Chancellor?”

Anakin’s old anger returns. First Organa had the audacity to interrupt this reunion and now he’s complaining about it? Anakin hadn’t wanted anything to do with the man! “I came to be with my wife. You just happened to be here.”

“Ani!” Padmé gasps. She loves him, but this wasn’t how she wanted to break the news. What must her friends think?

Mothma clutches her pearls. She has long suspected they were involved, but this? A noblewoman having an affair with a handsome Jedi is an unwise if not particularly unusual decision, but actually marrying him? Scandalous.

Chuchi blushes a deep purple. She thinks about Ahsoka. Could they have? She kicks herself for her missed opportunities.

Only Organa seems pleased for them. “Congratulations,” he says with an honest smile. Anakin is not who he would have chosen for his friend, but he brings Padmé joy and that is enough for the man.

Padmé smiles tightly. “I suppose now is as good a time as any to tell you that I’m pregnant.”

“I know,” Anakin says and kisses her until they are both breathless. He feels like he might float away from the sheer joy of it. “This is the happiest day of my life.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan drops by for a visit.

“I thought I’d find you here,” Obi-Wan says, resigned, when he interrupts their late breakfast shortly after noon. He takes them in, half-dressed, tussle-haired, and reeking of sex, and sighs. 

Anakin had been rediscovering the joys of food. Each bite was an explosion of taste and textures so overwhelming he thought it might short his brain. Padmé laughed and made a joke about army rations at his little moans of pleasure, but she didn’t understand. After twenty years of nutrient paste taken through a tube, the simple breakfast roll smeared with jogan fruit jam was the most delicious thing he could remember eating. It all turns to ash in his mouth at the sight of his former master.

Obi-Wan seems to have aged overnight. The change is only slightly less jarring than the one between Mustafar and the Death Star. His hair and face are the same as yesterday, but his posture is slumped with defeat. His heart is broken, Anakin realizes. He has broken Obi-Wan’s heart. 

“I’m so sorry, Mistress Padmé,” C-3PO says, rushing in Obi-Wan’s wake. “I told him you were not to be disturbed, but he wouldn’t listen.” 

“It’s alright, Threepio,” Padmé says gently before the droid can work himself up. “We’ve been expecting him.”

“Oh, well,” Threepio says, only slightly mollified. “You might have said,” he scolds the room in general before shuffling off, presumably to commiserate with Artoo about fickleness of organics.

“Obi-Wan,” Padmé rises to greet him with her best hostess smile. “Please, join us.” She ushers him to an empty chair, but Obi-Wan makes no move to sit. 

“No, thank you,” he says, turning up his nose. “That’s not why I’m here.”

Why is he there? Anakin half hopes it’s to collect the Temple’s borrowed speeder, but no. Padmé had her handmaidens drop it off last night. There is only one reason for him to be here.

“You’re here for me,” Anakin says in a hoarse whisper. His mouth is a desert, but he dares not reach for his caf to water it. Anakin has murdered the Jedi Obi-Wan always thought he could be. He remembers how this goes.

“The Council would take you back if you apologize,” Obi-Wan says with an intensity bordering on desperation. 

Anakin blinks. That is not what he was expecting. He has stolen the Order’s best weapon. Last time they sent Obi-Wan to kill him and now they’re offering him a way back? It seems unlikely, especially considering half of them hadn’t wanted him in the first place. 

Anakin narrows his eyes. “Did the Council send you?” 

“What does that matter?” Obi-Wan snaps, answering by not answering.

Anakin’s heart soars. This isn’t Obi-Wan here to punish him or drag him back before the masters. This is Obi-Wan chasing after him like he had chased after Ahsoka. 

He beams. “You still love me.” He hadn’t dared hope it was possible. 

Obi-Wan sucks in a sharp breath. He loves where a Jedi can not love. He can’t deal with such thoughts, so he doesn’t. He reaches for his lightsaber instead. Anakin flinches, but the lightsaber Obi-Wan draws is not his own. It’s Anakin’s.

“This weapon is your life, Anakin.” He holds it out imploringly. “You can’t just throw it away.”

Anakin reaches out, slowly, hesitantly, and takes it. He turns it over in his hands as he turns Obi-Wan’s words over in his head. This weapon is your life. Your life is a weapon. You are a weapon. Anakin spent twenty years as a weapon. He had destroyed whatever target he was pointed at and afterwards returned to his sheath with nothing to live for beyond his master’s purpose. It is not a life he would wish on his worst enemy. 

He lays the saber down on the table. “I am not a weapon. I’m a person. I left so I could _be_ a person.”

“I see,” Obi-Wan says coldly. “And you need all this,” he waves a disdainful hand to encompass both Padmé and the general opulence of their surroundings, “to be a person.”

Padmé stiffens. She doesn’t care for the implication that Anakin is only with her for her money. “Anakin and I have been married since the war began,” she says. “We both agreed that he would stay until the end.”

Obi-Wan shakes his head. He had known the two of them were involved, but, despite all the evidence, he can not believe that Anakin would keep such a secret from him. He looks to Anakin to deny it, and curls in on himself when he receives a nod of confirmation instead. His pain radiates in the Force. Has he ever truly known his padawan? He thought he had, but he’s not sure any more. 

Still, he rallies and fights above his pain like a true Jedi should. “You agreed he would stay, and yet, here we are.”

“You know why,” Anakin says.

“Was the Council ever going to inform the Senate of what they had learned about the clone’s origins?” Padmé jumps in, backing Anakin’s play. Yes, the two of them have kept their secrets, but the Council’s is the more egregious one. She will not let Obi-Wan claim the moral high ground. If he tries to take it, she will hold it and cut the legs out from under him.

“What?!” Obi-Wan stumbles back under the onslaught. Only his grip on the back of the chair keeps him on his feet. “You told her about that?” he demands, rounding on Anakin. He shakes his head and sinks into the empty seat. Betrayal on top of betrayal. He can’t deal with this.

“Anakin,” he says finally, after long minutes of deep breathing, “if you do not return with me right now, I won’t be able to help you.”

Help him? Anakin scoffs. Yes, Obi-Wan has always been a great help. He recalls just how helpful the man was when his mother died. What sort will he provide this time around? Will he shake his head and look away like he did when Anakin was appointed the Council? Maybe he will throw him to the rancors like he did when Ahsoka was framed.

“I don’t want your help,” Anakin says when he’s sure he won’t scream it in Obi-Wan’s face. “I want you to tell me you love me.”

“Would you come back if I do?”

Padmé gasps at the blatant attempt at emotional blackmail, but Obi-Wan’s love has always been conditional. Anakin’s not even mad about it, just disappointed. Loving and being loved by Luke has reminded him that it doesn’t have to be. 

Anakin shakes his head. “When Ahsoka left, I let her go because I trusted her to find her own path.” It had hurt, it had hurt so much, but Anakin could not live her life for her. “I believed in her,” he says. “Have you ever believed in me?” It had certainly never felt like it.   
“Of course I believe in you,” Obi-Wan insists. “You _are_ the Chosen One. I know it.”

“The one who will destroy the Sith and bring balance to the Force,” Anakin recites dully. How many times has he heard that, as if that’s all he’s good for. Believing in the prophecy is not the same as believing in him as a person. He wishes he had the words to explain that.

Obi-Wan nods eagerly. “Yes, and to do it, you must be a Jedi.”

Except, when he’d actually fulfilled the prophecy, he’d been neither Sith nor Jedi. Just a man trying to protect his family. “To balance the Force, I must find balance in myself. I can not do that as a Jedi.”

Obi-Wan’s face crumples as he screams his grief into the Force. “Then you are truly lost,” he whispers. He has failed his student. He has failed Qui-Gon. All is lost.

Anakin reaches for him, but Obi-Wan jerks back. He tucks his pain back behind his Jedi mask and he rises to his feet. “We have nothing more to say to each other,” he says coldly. 

Anakin’s lightsaber still lies on the table, a failed peace offering. Obi-Wan reaches for it, but can’t seem to make himself pick it up. His hand hovers above it as though blocked by a force field. Leaving here with it will mean accepting that Anakin won’t be coming back. Obi-Wan takes a deep breath and forces himself to take it. He clips it to his belt and turns to go.

“I love you.” 

Anakin’s words catch Obi-Wan at the door. He hesitates. Then he steps through and is gone.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Palpatine's summons arrives ten minutes after Obi-Wan leaves.

The summons from Palpatine comes ten minutes after Obi-Wan leaves. Anakin’s not ready. He needs more time to plan, or at least to brace himself. The confrontation with Obi-Wan has left him too raw to hide his intentions. His master will see, his master will know. Everyone Anakin loves will die, again, and it will all be his fault.

Anakin’s chest feels strangely tight and he can’t seem to catch his breath. He reaches to adjust his respirator, but the controls are missing. Where are they? Gasping, he claws frantically at his bare chest. Where is his respirator? Where is his suit? He can’t live without them!

Padmé calls his name, but he can barely hear her over the roaring in his ears. She captures his hands and holds them tight. “Breath with me, Ani. Breath!”

Squeezing his hands, she breaths in (two three four) and out (two three four). Obi-Wan used to do something similar back when he was teaching Anakin to meditate. The memory stings but the action helps. Anakin forces himself to match her breathing, slower and slower, until they are in perfect sync. Their breathing is measured and calm, but her eyes are wide and frightened. He suspects his are too.

“What was that?” Padmé asks, pulling him into a too-tight hug. She’s shaking. He’s shaking. They shake together.

“I don’t know,” Anakin gasps. He had literally thought he was dying. It is incomprehensible that he lives. “I was afraid.”

“Afraid? Of what?” She stokes his hair, a bit rougher than he’d like, but he lets it go. After the day they’ve had, she needs this comfort as much as he does. 

Besides, it’s not so bad. Anakin’s eyelids slide shut. They’ve only just gotten out of bed, but he’s so exhausted he could crawl back in and sleep for a week. “Palpatine,” he murmurs drowsily. 

“Palpatine?” Frowning with confusion and concern, Padmé pulls back to study his face. “Anakin, the chancellor is your friend.”

Anakin had thought so once too. More fool him. Still, he can’t exactly say that if he wants to keep her safe. 

“ _Obi-Wan_ was my friend,” he says instead. “I can’t lose anyone else.”

“You’re not losing anyone,” Padmé said sternly, as if she could command the universe to make it so. “Obi-Wan will come around. You’ll see.”

Anakin used to wonder sometimes about his wife’s seemingly boundless optimism. It wasn’t naiveté, he’d come to realize, so much as a sort of willful blindness. Luke was the same way. Their insistence on seeing only the best in people is a blessing as much as a curse. Where Anakin would always strive to live up to their expectations, others would only seek to take advantage. All the more reason they are to be protected.

“Let’s get you dressed.” Padmé tugs him to his feet and leads him to the bedroom. 

Anakin sways alarmingly. He taps into the Force just to stay on is feet and delves deeper to find the strength to keep moving. Eyes closed in meditation, he lets Padmé dress him like a doll in yesterday’s clothes. Shirt, tunic, tabard, cloak. He is like a Jedi action figure that has lost its lightsaber.

Padmé frowns as she attempts to smooth the wrinkles. “We need to get you some new clothes,” she says. “Do you have any preferences?"  
“Whatever you think best,” Anakin says absently. His little fit has left him strangely numb and he intends to ride this feeling as long as he can.

“No,” Padmé says sharply, gripping his arm with bruising force. “This is important. Clothes are how we present ourselves to the world. _You_ are the only one who can define who you are. Now, what do you want?”

What does he want? He hasn’t picked his own clothes in, well, ever. For the first time in his life, all options are on the table. He fingers the hem of his tunic. Jedi robes are as much a statement of purpose as they are a symbol of status. He knows his purpose, but how, exactly does a devoted father dress? 

“Not black,” he says after some consideration. Luke wore it well, but if Anakin never looks down and sees it on himself again it will still be too soon. 

Padmé nods encouragingly. What else does he want? Comfort, he supposes. That would be nice.

“Nothing too scratchy…or to tight…or difficult to clean.” That should cover everything he doesn’t want, but what about something he does? “I like capes,” Anakin adds, “and cloaks.” He likes the way they flare around him when he walks, but let him disappear into their folds when he needs to.

“Alright,” Padmé laughs. “We’ll schedule a meeting with my tailor when you come back,” Padmé says and sends him off with a kiss.

Luckily, their clothing conversation hasn’t done much to cut the numb. In fact, the numbness spreads with each step he takes towards the chancellor’s office. It fills him up and pushes him out until Anakin is floating outside his body watching as he exchanges mindless pleasantries with a senator’s aide in the turbo-lift. This is a good thing. Anakin has done some of his best work floating outside himself.

Unfortunately, the galaxy is a cruel, cold place. It sends Anakin crashing back into himself the second he steps into Palpatine’s lair. The returning fear punches him in the stomach and it is all he can do to keep from throwing up on the carpet. 

The old man is reading something at his desk when Anakin enters. He looks up and beams like he’s welcoming a long lost son. His smile sends shivers down Anakin’s spine. Without his scars, he is so much kindlier looking than Anakin remembered. Who would ever believe he is a monster?

“My dear boy.” Palpatine rises to welcome him with open arms. His embrace feels like a trap. It is a trap. Anakin freezes. Palpatine doesn’t seem to notice, or maybe he just doesn’t care how uncomfortable Anakin is. “I understand congratulations are in order.”

“What?” 

“You’re a married man now,” Palpatine slaps him on the back like they are chums in a cantina. “And soon to be a father, I hear.”

Anakin’s stomach drops. Where had he heard that? It isn’t exactly common knowledge. Who has been gossiping about then? Padmé’s friends? Her servants? He will kill them all. Unless the source isn’t gossip. Before, Palpatine had known about his nightmares, plus a few other things Anakin had only ever mentioned in Padmé’s apartment. What if the place is bugged? It would certainly explain a lot. Anakin vows to search every inch of Padmé’s apartment the second he gets home, tailor’s appointment or not.

“I see the Jedi are less pleased,” Palpatine says, nodding at Anakin’s empty belt. “I am so sorry. I know how much being a Jedi meant to you.”

His shields are good, but Anakin just spent the last twenty years studying his master’s moods as if his life depended on it. On the surface, Palpatine is all sympathy, but inside he is cackling. The Jedi have all but handed him their greatest weapon. He is picking out Sith names. He has already designed the suit. The trap is already set and there is nothing Anakin can do to escape it. 

Overconfidence is his weakness, Luke reminds him and something in his chest begins to loosen. Palpatine is not scrutinizing his apprentice for signs of treason. He is probing an idiot child for weaknesses to exploit. All Anakin has to do is give him some.

“For so long I feared angering them, but when I did? It was a relief,” Anakin says, touching the empty spot on his belt. It feels strange not to have a weapon, but it will be a pleasure growing used to the sensation. 

“To be sure.” Palpatine’s glee radiates off him in waves, although his face gives away nothing as he ushers Anakin to the empty chair in front of the desk. He enthrones himself on the one behind it. “I do wonder if the Jedi can win the war without you.”

An attempt at flattery or a stab at guilt? No matter. “They can not.”

Palpatine lets loose a bark of surprised laughter. “Modest, aren’t we?”

Modesty has little to do with it. Anakin knows precisely what he is capable of and what he is not. “They can not win with me either.” The war is a rigged game only the emperor is meant to win.

Palpatine looks taken aback. “You truly think it is as hopeless as that?” 

Anakin shakes his head. “You are the only one who can end this war.”

“What?” Palpatine asks, a hint of Sidious’s cruel croak leaking into his voice. His eyes narrow dangerously and Anakin feels a thrill of fear usually reserved for exciting dogfights against surprisingly skilled opponents. He resists the urge to grin. Words have never been his weapon of choice, but this is going to be fun.

“You could open negotiations,” he says as earnestly as he can manage.

“Goodness, is that you’re wife I hear?” Palpatine sneers like Anakin should be ashamed to repeat her wisdom. “No, my boy,” he says, sliding his kindly mask back into place, “it is far too late for talking. The Separatists must be brought to heel if we are to have any hope of restoring peace and unity to the Republic.”

Anakin nods. He knows this tune and has sung it more than a few times himself. The Jedi taught it to him well. Make clear your capacity to destroy until your willingness to accept their complete capitulation seems like mercy. Obi-Wan even had a cute little name for it. “Aggressive negotiations.” 

“Precisely.” Palpatine smiles like Anakin is a pet who has performed some sort of trick. Has he always been this condescending? Anakin doesn’t remembers his praise being this insulting. “A clear military victory is essential to impose the peace.” 

Is it though? All his life, Anakin has been told that order must be imposed from above, but things never stay orderly. Fear, Tarkin had promised, would keep the people in line, but, in the end, it was the Organa girl who had been right. The more they had tightened their grip, the more systems had slipped through their fingers.

“It doesn’t work,” Anakin marvels quietly. How has he never noticed this before?

Palpatine’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “What are you saying?”

“When I was a slave, I was afraid of my masters,” Anakin says slowly. He is still working his way through this revelation and struggles to find words which won’t get him killed. “I feared what they could do to me and I always did exactly what they asked.”

Palpatine smiles slightly as he listens. That Anakin was a biddable slave is exactly what he wants to hear. Too bad for him a biddable slave is not what he will get.

“I did exactly what they asked of me and nothing more. I obeyed the letter, but never the spirit.” Anakin’s voice grows more intense as he goes. His eyes drill defiance into Palpatine’s until the smile slips from from the old man’s lips. “I stole behind their backs and lied to their faces until I won my freedom!” 

The words pull him from his chair until his standing triumphantly over his old master. He is issuing a challenge. Palpatine will try to crush this rebellious spirt and Anakin, of course, will resist. Anakin is still afraid, he would be a fool not to be, but he will no longer be ruled by it. He will have no more masters.

“Fear can compel labor, but it can not change their minds. If you force a peace treaty down the Separatists’ throats, you will be at war again in twenty years.” He considers. “Probably less.”

“I see.” Palpatine reclines in his chair and studies Anakin with anger masquerading as amusement. Padmé pushes back, not Anakin. He does not care for the change. “I had no idea you were so well versed in galactic politics. What, then, do you suggest?”

“I don’t know.”

Deflated, Anakin sinks back into his chair. The Jedi fight to keep the peace, but have little skill in making it. He thinks of Padmé kneeling in the mud, of Chuchi throwing her spear in the snow. Kindness and justice are effective, but they are not the Sith way. 

“Maybe you can not force peace,” he says quietly, as if to himself. “Maybe,” he looks directly into Palpatine’s eyes, “peace is a lie.”

Palpatine stiffens like an anooba who has caught a scent. His eyes shine with a predatory light. “Not a very Jedi sentiment.”

Anakin gestures to his empty belt. “I am no Jedi.”

Can anyone resist such bait? The old monster looks like he might lunge across the desk and devour Anakin whole. He licks his lips and leans forward to—

The door chimes. They both jump. For a split second, Palpatine’s expression is downright murderous at being thwarted in pursuit of his prey. He struggles to replace his genial mask as the door opens. His smile of greeting is strained as the Kaminoan senator and her cronies file in.

“We’ll discuss this later,” he says as Anakin rises to go.

“As you wish,” Anakin says with a bow. Maybe overconfidence is his weakness too because he’s almost looking forward to it.


End file.
